


sin c(er)ity

by Reishiin



Series: the ones who walk away from Heartland [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Alternate Universe - ARC-V, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-08
Updated: 2017-01-08
Packaged: 2018-09-15 15:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9241703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Reishiin/pseuds/Reishiin
Summary: The tripartite theory of the soul.(When Byron Arclight vanishes, Chris relocates the family to Heartland City)





	1. desire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Takes place in the same universe and at the same time as [eudaimonia](http://archiveofourown.org/works/7900057), but can stand alone.

 

 

 

 

After the dimensional war, Sakaki Yuuya himself oversaw the restoration of Heartland and the resettlement of people. The postwar reparations paid by Fusion to Xyz are more than sufficient to rebuild the city to its former beauty and allow everyone in it to live well for a long, long time.

 _As long as I live, nobody in Heartland will ever be sad again._  
_No one will ever suffer, or want for anything._  
_No one will be dissatisfied._  
Everybody can be happy.

To have food and clean water and shelter and electricity, and good schools and reliable transport and access to amenities— to those who had struggled to survive through every day of the war, it was indeed paradise. But there were also those who looked around at the restored city and its shining towers and uncertain smiles, and said, "This is not what we want," and quietly packed up to leave.

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

Thomas is seventeen when he arrives in Heartland City in the back of a black taxicab with nothing but the clothes on his back and two suitcases containing all his possessions. He stands on the smooth pavement outside the high-rise complex where their assigned apartment is located, watches the cab peel away from the side of the road and disappear back into the thin flow of afternoon traffic. Beside him, Chris deposits their final suitcase on the ground and says, "Let's go."

Thomas is seventeen, and Heartland City is laden with riches and luxuries he has never seen before. He can actually have his own room, with warm blankets and a soft bed, and hot water and good food every day and free rides to anywhere in the city he wants to go. He has never met Sakaki Yuuya, but he thinks the boy must be benevolent and kind to allow the people in the city to enjoy things like this.

 

He is too young to remember the dimensional war. Chris says that when the conflict ended and Sakaki Yuuya took control of Heartland City, Father joined the ranks of those who left the city because they did not like the prospect of life under Yuuya's leadership. Since then their small family lived in a small house on the city's fringe among the other remnants of the diaspora. Often, when the sun went down and the air turned cold, Thomas went outside and looked with wonder and envy at the lights of the city in the distance. He thought, a place that looks like that must be filled with warmth and beautiful things.

And then Father left, and Chris took Thomas and Michael aside and showed them his offer letter from Heartland University and asked them, very seriously, if they would be fine with moving to Heartland City. Thomas jumped at the chance to say 'yes'. Michael just said quietly, "Whatever makes it easier for you, niisan."

 

* * *

 

First week of school, Thomas signs up for dueling club. Everyone has to do one extracurricular activity and he doesn't know any sports and can't play any instruments so he puts his name down for the one thing he does know how to do. At the after-school meeting the club president challenges Thomas to a match to determine his placement, and to Thomas' surprise, he actually wins.

Afterwards, the other students in the club come up to him. "That was amazing."  
"How did you do that thing with the trap card and the summon from the graveyard?"  
"You're so cool, Thomas."

He has never been complimented on his dueling before, and it makes him so happy he can't stop smiling. He hardly dares to believe it.

The kids in Heartland City duel for fun, not for their lives, and they're easy to beat. Thomas establishes himself as the best duelist in the school, then joins Heartland City's local competitive dueling meet. He quickly makes a name for himself as one of the best entertainment duelists in Heartland City, gets invited to perform exhibition matches at festivals, company functions, city parades. He learns quickly: flattering clothes, good angles, the entertainer's performative humility. "It doesn't matter if I win or lose," he says, with a radiant smile, "so long as I'm having fun and making people happy."

(It's a lie. He has to win.)

Rumour has it that before the dimensional war, Sakaki Yuuya had studied entertainment dueling, and would have gone on to become a performer had he not gotten involved in the conflict. Thomas thinks: he'd approve.

 

* * *

 

"If you want to earn a bit extra," the guy at the dueling meet said as he pushed a piece of paper bearing an address into Thomas' hands.

Heartland's underground dueling scene enforces the ante rule and holds matches in actual cages twenty metres square. It's not exactly legal, but it's something different and entertaining for both the duelists and the audience both, and Heartland's local authorities are content to turn a blind eye so long as nobody gets hurt and nothing too contraband changes hands.

Thomas' Gimmick Puppets are eerie even in full daylight, and in the grim half-darkness of the arena their menace is amplified. More than one opponent takes one look at his field and leaves the ring without even drawing their first card because 'Those eyes, they'll take your soul if you look long enough".

They're just puppets, Thomas thinks, just monsters like any other. What superstition. But he has learned that Heartlanders put very much stock by 'the atmosphere of the duel' and 'the soul of the cards' and such things. In any case, if it will give him the win, then he is perfectly fine with it.

 

* * *

 

Let it never be said that Heartland City does not provide anything and everything one could possibly desire.

Thomas gets invited to parties, formal dinners, open-air concerts in the quadrangle in Heartland's central park. After the first few times he learns he can't hold his drink but pretends he can anyway because he does stupid things when he's drunk that make people laugh. He likes the laughter of other people; it makes him feel useful, wanted.

Tonight the lights of the disco ball over the dance floor are bright, packed with people just looking for a good time. Thomas knows how to smile and turn such that the light catches his good angle just right, how to lean against a wall with his arms crossed and watch the crowd so that he looks interesting, but not interested. Fake glitter and fake laughter and smiles, like entertainment dueling under spotlights so bright he can't tell if the audience is laughing with him or at him, but it makes him feel good for a matter of minutes to hours and that's all that's really important, right?

Someone offers him recreational drugs and he almost accepts, but a voice that sounds very like Chris whispers something nasty at the back of his mind and he stays his hand, makes his excuses to leave. In the alley behind the club he throws up the contents of his stomach into the storm drain— he knows he shouldn't drink on an empty stomach but knowing is very different from doing— and passes a hand over his face with so much force his eyeliner smears. In the distance, a car honks.

It's like the half hour after a show, after the curtain has fallen and the applause has died and Thomas steps out of the changing room in his street clothes to face a dark and empty hall. Inexplicably, it makes him think about Sakaki Yuuya. That boy has pretty words and a pretty smile but Thomas is an entertainer too, knows that entertainers are very, very good at lying, whether it's to themselves or others.

In the sanctity of the Pendulum Palace's inner halls where no one can see, does that boy really believe in what he said that day atop the restored Heartland Tower to the cheering crowd far below, that 'Heartland City is a place where everybody can be happy'?

(All Thomas has ever wanted is to stand with his back straight in front of that man, and look him in the eye and say,  _I'm doing well for myself now, aren't I.  
_ But Byron Arclight is long gone now.)

 

The first few times Thomas got home late, Chris had waited up to ask him where he'd been and what he'd been doing. The first few times, Thomas had answered honestly and then felt awful about everything. After that he'd learned to lie, or ignore or avoid the question, or snipe Chris about Tenjou Kaito or something, because that's the game you play when you live with someone who doesn't see things the same way you do and you both know each other's weaknesses and secrets by heart. Eventually Chris stops waiting up, and when Thomas turns the key in the lock and opens the door to a dark empty living room he is at once flooded with self-hatred and a sickening sense of relief.

Eventually, without talking about it at all, they settle on the explanation that Chris is too occupied with his work and entertaining Mr Heartland and running the household to pay much attention to what Thomas is doing. Thomas thinks it's just fine that way.

 

* * *

 

When Thomas was eight, he got caught in a burning building with two other kids. The boy had knocked the girl out of the way of a falling beam, and Thomas was in the way and the girl crashed into him and sent him flying into a wall. All three of them got out alive and Thomas got the scar over his right eye for his trouble, and now he spins the story to make it seem like he saved her.

"I never saw her again," Thomas finishes. He doesn't remember the name of the girl he's talking to, thinks it starts with a J although it really doesn't matter; it's dark in this bar and well into the evening and she's finished the drink he bought her, leaning into his space to hear his story better. He passes a hand over his injured eye in a display of emotion. "But I hope she's doing fine..."

 

* * *

 

Thomas' opponent for the night is a boy several years older than he is— someone not too well off, by the look of his tattered clothes and the grim determination with which he grips his duel disk like he can't afford to lose. Oh, Thomas knows what that's like. He was like that for a long, long time and now that he knows better— has better— he has no sympathy, no sympathy at all.

They duel. 'Shark' runs a water deck and fights like a cornered rat and to Thomas' surprise he's actually _good_ (it's not that Thomas has gone soft from not dueling seriously in months, it can't be). They match each other blow for blow, trap for counter-trap, and then Shark pulls a Numbers card and—

(Thomas knows how to beat it, he does, it's just he hasn't had to do it in a while and he can't remember if he needs to summon his R4 or R8 first. He can figure this out, he can, but the timer is running down and—)

—he picks R4 on a gut feeling and immediately knows it was the wrong decision to make. Across the duel field 'Shark' smirks at the misplay, activates a trap card and empties Thomas's field and then his life points. He inclines his head to the crowds, walks over to collects his payment from his handler, and then heads out of the ring without a second look at Thomas or the murmuring audience.

Thomas clenches his fists at his side as 'Shark' walks out of the ring. He'd had an unbroken 54-win streak until this guy walked in and casually ruined everything. "Who the hell is that guy?"

"Shark," his handler answers. "Cagey about his real name, an undocumented most likely, but he fights clean enough so the bosses let him slide."

"An undocumented," Thomas repeats. Someone with secrets and reasons to avoid being noticed, whose right to exist in Heartland City is in question. "I'm turning him in."

On hearing that, the guy— Kaio— catches his arm in a surprisingly strong grip. "Eh, Thomas, don't. Shark brings in a lot of the money that keeps this place running, and there's no need to draw unwanted attention to this place, eh? You can just beat 'im into the ground next time. Should be no problem for someone like you."

Thomas is so mad his nails are cutting bloody crescents into his own hand but he hears the logic in it; nods to show he understands and then walks away. How dare that 'Shark' guy wear that grim and brooding expression like he's suffering so much. Those people _choose_  to exist outside Heartland City's generous providence, and how dare they take _pride_ in their difficult lives when they bring it all on themselves. That kind of suffering ain't noble; it's just unnecessary pain. People who willingly choose that kind of life and drag their families and friends and loved ones down into that hell with them— deserve everything they get.

Thomas almost hopes he'll run into Shark again, if only so he can wipe the floor with him and then wipe that martyred expression off his face.

 


	2. reason

 

 

When Father disappears without a trace, Chris reopens the desk drawer containing the offer letter from Heartland University. A year ago he had put in his application for a faculty position using old references from his graduate degree, and interviewed by video call in the most neutral location he could find on short notice. A month later he received written notice of the university's acceptance, as he had expected he would— on paper, his record is promising, as long as he can hide his connections to the resistance cell leader known as Tron.

Chris is old enough to remember the dimensional war, young enough to believe in what it stood for. To him and everyone else in the resistance, Heartland City's freedom comes first, before any empty promises of utopia or so-called happiness. But Sakaki Yuuya has a good heart, and his way— though not perfect— has allowed people to live much better lives than they would have otherwise. Furthermore, Chris is responsible for his family now, and their welfare comes first. No matter what, Thomas and Michael cannot suffer.

That evening at dinner, he asks Thomas and Michael if they would be okay with moving to Heartland City. Thomas is pleased; he's never made a secret of his disdain for life at the fringes. Michael is less enthusiastic, but he agrees too.

It'll be good for them to be able to go to school, Chris thinks. He did their best to teach them to read and write and do maths and sciences, but there is only so much he can do in their circumstances with their severely limited resources, and they deserve better.

The next day, Chris writes back to Mr Heartland indicating his acceptance of the job offer. He leaves an anonymous note in the resistance network relinquishing all of Tron's assets to the collective, and they leave for Heartland City a week later on a cold day at the beginning of autumn.

Tenjou Kaito also chooses that day to visit, and his expression changes as he sees their hands full of bags and their house dark behind them.

"—Kaito-niisama," Michael says softly.

"Chris," Kaito says. The hood of his cloak casts a shadow over his face, and Chris can't read his expression. "Where are you going?"

"Heartland," Chris replies, and hopes Kaito understands.

Kaito steps forward, lays one hand on Chris' arm. "Really, Chris," Kaito says, and Chris hears Kaito's voice break on his name but he's made up his mind and he can't let anything stop him now.

He wrenches his arm from Kaito's grip. "Come on, Thomas, Michael," he says, more steadily than he feels. They get into the waiting cab and leave Kaito and their house and their old life a shadow in the dark behind them.

Mr Heartland himself meets Chris at the city border, gives them directions to their new residence and a folder containing information about amenities in the area and emergency and non-emergency contacts in case they need anything. The taxicab pulls to a stop beside the pavement outside the high-rise complex where their assigned housing is; the apartment itself is compact but well-furnished, spacious enough for all of them to have their own rooms, and there aren't holes in the walls and the heating works and the window seals don't let in the cold. It is much more than Chris had ever dared to hope for.

"Wow, this is nice," Thomas says.

 

* * *

 

One week in Heartland City. Chris completes the requisite paperwork to enrol Michael and Thomas in Heartland Academy's local middle and high school branches respectively, and himself prepares to joins the Faker Lab studying dimensional transportation at the university.

"You won't get to meet Dr. Faker," the lab tech says as she shows him around the lab space on his first day. Her name is Luna, and she is a third-year physics student at the university. "He unfortunately passed away in the dimensional war, but his work lives on."

(Chris remembers the day Tenjou Kaito showed up on Byron Arclight's doorstep with his younger brother in tow and thinks, _I know._ )

 

* * *

 

Chris still has his old mobile, configured to use Sparta City's satellite towers so messages don't pass through Heartland City's wireless network. Chris had helped to set up that communications infrastructure himself, immediately after the war ended and Sakaki Yuuya rose to power, before any of them knew what Heartland City would become.

_Kaito, how are you doing?_

Half an hour later Kaito replies _, why the hell do you care?_

_I care about you and Haruto. Where I am doesn't change that._

_don't give me that bullshit._

_Where are you now? Durbe said you left._

Another half hour. _Sparta City._

A weight lifts from Chris' mind. Kaito is perfectly capable of surviving on Heartland's chaotic fringes, but Haruto's condition had not improved over the years and with Chris' departure, there are very few people left who can look after him in Kaito's absence.

_How is Haruto?_

_in the hospital. The move was hard on him._

_Heartland has good medical facilities,_ Chris types. _They have treated patients very like Haruto before, and have the best equipment and personnel from Standard to handle it._ Chris hovers over the send button, considering Kaito's reaction, and then presses down.

A minute. _I can never go back to Heartland,_ Kaito types back.

 

* * *

 

Two months in Heartland City. On weekdays Chris leaves the house at 7 a.m. before Thomas and Michael are awake, returns at 9 p.m. after his brothers have had dinner and retired to their rooms for the evening. He doesn't see them as often as he used to, but Michael is doing well in school and Thomas occupies his time with his new friends on the entertainment dueling scene, so Chris leaves them to their own devices.

He writes Tenjou Kaito several times a week, long letters typed by monitor-light late at night long after Thomas and Michael have gone to bed. He tells Kaito about his work at the university and his research findings, about Thomas and Michael, and occasionally about life in Heartland City.

_What Yuuya is doing gives the greatest possible happiness to the greatest possible number._

Kaito writes back, _What right do Yuuya and his lot have to decide?_

_He has no right. But the reality is that he does, and people can only make do, and do the best they can for themselves and those they care about. Kaito, you of everyone should know that._

Kaito himself is keeping a low profile in Sparta City while Haruto recuperates and receives treatment; he'd remained in contact with Durbe and continues to help the resistance gather information and supplies and relay messages—anything he can do without needing to be physically present.

 

* * *

 

"Did you hear, Chris? Another raid on Heartland Tower happened today," Luna says.

"That rebel group again?" Chris keeps his voice neutral. Luna nods. "What did they get?"

"Nothing. Kurosaki got wind of when they'd be there. It wasn't pretty."

 _Damn it, Nasch,_ Chris thinks, and then he tries to put it out of his mind.

 

* * *

 

Three months in Heartland City. The people at the Faker Lab are kind, intelligent, driven. With the facilities and resources of the university at his disposal, Chris can make much more progress on his research here than he ever could out on the fringes. He uses his access to the university servers to send Kaito journal articles, data sets from the lab's instruments and satellite images from the telescopes.

Michael works hard and does well in school, but there seems to be something on his mind that wasn't there before. Thomas has let Heartland's freedom get to his head; he is out of Chris' control now, and Chris only hopes he has enough sensibilities left to stay out of anything permanently damaging.

As for Chris himself— he is so accustomed to struggling that, now that he is faced with Heartland City's plethora of resources and opportunities, he doesn't know the first of how to use them to the best results for himself and his brothers. That— and the long hours and intense demands of his work— become the new burden he is not yet sure he can bear up against. But he knew when he came to Heartland City that this would happen. He will just have to adapt, as Thomas and Michael already have.

This life is all they have now, and it is so much more than they had before, and Chris will do anything it takes to protect it.

 

* * *

 

_How is Haruto?_

_Stable now,_ Kaito replies. The Sparta City winters are cold, and the housing Droite found them had bad heating, and Haruto had been taken ill and admitted to the hospital for the third time that year. It is terribly worrying but also almost relieving, because it means that Kaito can carry out his work knowing that Haruto is somewhere safe and supervised.

Now that Chris has cut his ties with the resistance collective, Kaito is his only source of information for their movements. Kaito says that Nasch's cell is getting restless; a series of failed raids pointing to a potential intelligence leak has all of them on edge, they plan to move on Heartland City before Prince Yuuya leaves for the winter.

 _That's suicide,_ Chris writes.

_That's what I said, too. But Ryouga doesn't listen, does he?_

Nasch's attempt on Prince Yuuya's life fails terribly, and for weeks afterward Chris and the rest of the lab has to deal with Kurosaki's increased security measures. Kaito reports that the remainder of the resistance has scattered; now that the last organized cell in the immediate area has disbanded, there is no longer reason for them to stay.  

It's not over, Kaito says. They do not know for sure that Nasch is dead. It is possible that that man is hiding somewhere else and biding his time. And there are other resistance cells, other leaders. Heartland will never surrender and Heartland will never die. It will survive Sakaki Yuuya the same way it survived the dimensional war.

 

* * *

 

Six months in Heartland City. Writing to Kaito takes hours out of Chris' day he can't afford, and the chronic loss of sleep takes its toll on his work and life, but he doesn't stop writing. If nothing else, debating the political philosophy of Prince Yuuya's postwar leadership distracts him from the reality of his situation, and the responses let him know that Kaito is still alive and in good enough shape to write. From the fact that Kaito doesn't stop writing back, Chris thinks that Kaito needs this as much as he does.

_The judgments of humans are flawed. Will you condemn someone to a lifetime of education and work they are not suited for, because they were sick on the day of a test?_

_Yuuto has already considered that. The algorithms take multiple data points from standardized tests and apperception tests conducted yearly, and all outcomes are filtered for statistical significance before application. He takes it seriously. All of this was covered in the paper he released last May. You're getting sloppy, Kaito._

It's a low blow. Chris knows that as of late, Kaito has been run ragged between his resistance duties and taking care of Haruto.  
  
Kaito doesn't reply for four days and when he finally does it is just the single line _Chris, why did you leave?_

(The day Tenjou Kaito arrived on the Arclights' doorstep with Haruto in tow, he had said, _I am afraid,_ sounding far older than his fourteen years. He had fought at Faker's side in the dimensional war, and when he outlived Faker he also inherited culpability for all his father's crimes. In the aftermath of the war in the streets of Heartland City he saw not friends, but enemies at every turn. He said that he was waiting for the day Kurosaki's scouts smoke him out, and bring him before Yuuya to receive judgment for his crimes.

That day Byron Arclight had taken Kaito and Haruto in out of kindness and for the sake of his and Faker's former friendship, and Chris had taken it upon himself to care for the boy like his own younger brother because he had seen the steel in Kaito's eyes when he had said, _I am not afraid for myself. I am afraid of what will happen to Haruto when I am no longer there to protect him._ )

Now Chris writes back, _Kaito, why did you stay?_

 _The resistance is my home now,_ Kaito replies.

(It _was mine too,_ Chris thinks.) He writes back, _Yuuya and Yuuto are kind. There will always be a place for you and Haruto in Heartland, Kaito. All you have to do is come back._

 _I can never go back,_ Kaito says. _Kurosaki will kill me and Haruto on sight._

The remainder of Kaito's message is a mathematical treatment on the failure of statistical significance tests in various contexts, a belated reply to Chris' previous point regarding Yuuto's new educational policy.

Chris writes his response, and then adds, _How is Haruto?_

 _He's fine,_ Kaito replies.

 

* * *

 

Eight months in Heartland City. The university has a set of of the waveform analyzers developed by Akaba Reiji to monitor summoning energy in the dimensional war. Chris pulls up the logs from the last week; there was a recent spike in xyz energy just outside the city's edge. If the remnants of Nasch's cell are regrouping, they're not doing a good job of staying hidden.

Kaito sends Chris a screenshot of a text from somebody who says they can help Haruto. _From Byron Arclight's number,_ he writes. _I thought you should know._

_Kaito, don't go. It's not Father._

(It can't be. Even if Byron Arclight was still alive, he wouldn't have contacted Tenjou Kaito before his own sons.)

_I have to. Whoever it is, they know about Haruto's condition and they know my connection to Byron Arclight. If they can help me, then I have to know. If they can't— then if nothing else I need to know how they know._

Once Kaito has made up his mind, there is no convincing him otherwise. Chris closes out of the messaging app and scrolls through his contact list for Tsukumo Yuuma's name. The boy is no longer in Heartland City, but it is possible that he still has his credentials and clearance and Chris will take any chance he can get.

Yuuma picks up on the third ring, and after verifying both their identities Chris begs him to pull Heartland City's telephone exchange logs.

Yuuma reports that Byron's line has been dead for months, aside from one recent incident: a text routed through an automatic number identification system that modified the originating number before forwarding the message. The area code of the real phone number is from Heartland City. There are no other records of it.

Two days later Chris receives word on the civil service mailing list that an attempt was made on Prince Yuuya's life. The culprit had fled before he could be apprehended, but Kurosaki identified him as a resistance sympathizer who had caused trouble in the past. His description fits Kaito.

Chris texts Kaito three separate times and gets no reply. As a last resort, he tries to contact Droite, who replies with a short message saying Haruto is well. She makes no mention of Kaito. When Chris tries to reach her again, her number is no longer in use.

 

* * *

 

One year in Heartland City.

Since Nasch's failed attempt on Yuuya's life, there has been no movement from the resistance. Kurosaki goes to the city fringes where Nasch's resistance cell base had been located and burns every last abandoned building to the ground. "That's the end of them," he says when he returns, "and good riddance."

Heartland smiles, then turns to Chris who is sitting in the chair opposite his office table and says, "What are you thinking, Chris? They were your former friends after all."

"As you say, former friends," Chris says quietly, keeping his voice neutral. "My family and I no longer have any ties to them."

Heartland seems satisfied enough by that answer.

That evening when Chris returns home, he lets the door of his room click shut behind him and buries his face in his hands.

He has not heard from Kaito in four months. The last four outbound messages sit, marked delivered but not read, in the outbox of the mobile phone that is his last connection to his former life. At first Chris had checked the mobile once a day, then every two days, then on the weekends when he remembered. Now he checks again, and finds that the battery is dead. He thinks about plugging it in to charge, then drops it back in his desk drawer and turns out the light.

 


	3. will

 

 

Three months after moving to Heartland City, Chris is working hard at the university and Thomas is making a name for himself as an entertainment duelist, and Michael thinks he has to do something worthwile, too.

Every day after school he goes to the library and checks out a set of books, and then he goes to Heartland Museum where the stone tablets are on exhibit, and sits on one of the rest benches or in a corner and does his homework and reads the books cover to cover until the museum closes at 6 p.m., and then crosses the street and catches the rush hour train home. There are train stops almost right outside both the museum and their house, so it's easy.

"Hey," someone says one warm Saturday afternoon, when the museum is quiet and Michael is curled up in a comfortable chair in the waiting area on his fourth reread of _Dueling: A History_.

It's the museum guide who does tours on weekends and public holidays. Michael sometimes hears him leading some group or other through the stone tablet exhibits. He's good at it and knows absolutely everything, and Michael maybe wants to be like him someday.

"Mm, what is it? Am I in the way?" He marks his place in his book and starts gathering his things.

"Oh, no, not at all, no tour groups right now. I just see you around here a lot, so I thought I'd say hi. You're always in here reading, aren't you? And that uniform, Heartland Middle School, right?"

"Yeah, I am..."

Tsukumo Yuuma is seventeen, a second-year at Heartland High, although he doesn't much care for it and only stays enrolled because everyone is required to complete at least secondary education. He stays with distant relatives and works weekends at the museum and weekday evenings at the lighthouse atop Heartland Tower.

He smiles when Michael says he likes being here among the artifacts. "I've never met anyone who's really interested in archaeology before," he says.

Michael smiles back, doesn't say that he hadn't had much choice in things to become interested in. As a child, Michael had only owned three books: a high school history textbook, a Heartland Museum guidebook, and a tome of Barian myths. He read them so often he knew them by heart, but now, he can go to the museum and the public library whenever he wants.

Every day after school he meets Yuuma at the base of Heartland Tower, and they go up to the observatory together, and Michael reads books and does his homework with Yuuma's voice directing air traffic for background noise, and when night falls they say goodbye and Michael catches the train home. Heartland Tower is two stops closer to his house than the museum had been, and the train is far less crowded at 7 p.m. than 6.

 

* * *

 

"Happy birthday, Michael." Yuuma hands over a stack of trading cards. "Sorry they're a bit old, but I think they still work."

Outside the glass panels of the observatory dusk is falling, and the sky over Heartland City is orange and red. Michael flips through the cards. The names are familiar; Yuuma showed them to him once when they'd talked about chapter six of _Dueling: A History_. "I can't, Yuuma. Aren't these your keepsakes?"

"Mm, yes, they used to be my dad's."

"Then of course I can't take them."

Yuuma told him about Kazuma Tsukumo before: a fearless adventurer who had visited many places and seen many things, the man who taught Yuuma to always hold his head high and have hope and _kattobing_. And then the dimensional war had happened, and Yuuma had lived and Kazuma and Mirai Tsukumo had not.

"Eh, Michael. I remember him a different way, and I have my own cards and you like these, so you should have them. He wouldn't have wanted them to just gather dust anyway."

"Then, thank you, Yuuma."

Michael pulls out his own deck— one of the beginner ones they hand out to everyone in dueling club that he'd never cared to alter— and shuffles them in.

Static over the radio. Yuuma switches off one of the displays, walks around to stand before the now clear glass that overlooks all of Heartland City. From this vantage point, cars move like well-behaved fireflies across the highways that wind through Heartland's business district. Michael studies Yuuma's reflection: Yuuma isn't looking at the lights, but at something just outside the city's dark edge.

Yuuma turns to him. "Michael, are you happy?"

Michael nods. Chris-niisama is working very hard so that they can stay in Heartland and have a good life, and Michael is determined not to let him down.

"No," Yuuma says. "I mean _you_ , Michael, are you really—"

Michael thinks about Chris, who leaves home at 7 a.m. and returns at 9.p.m. and leaves his lights on till the early morning, writing letters to Tenjou Kaito; Thomas arriving home on somebody else's motorbike with smudged eyeliner and glitter in his hair. "I think," Michael replies seriously, "happy isn't something that you are, it's something you make for yourself."

No one who grew up in Heartland City would ever say something like that, and Michael thinks he just told Yuuma something very important that maybe he shouldn't have but it's too late to take it back now.

Yuuma nods. He's clasped one hand over the pendant he wears, the one Kazuma gave him, the one he told Michael means 'to never give up, and always keep striving'. "'Something you make for yourself,' huh?"

 

* * *

 

_Michael dont come to the lighthouse today_

_Okay. Is something happening at work?_

_Yeah dont go near central city either  
_ _were practising something there_  
Actually yknow what just stay home if you can

_Okay, Yuuma, I will. See you tmr?_

_see you!_

 

* * *

 

"You're home early," Thomas says with surprise when Michael unlatches the door at 4 p.m. He'd likely expected to have the house to himself or something, but— too bad. Later, Michael helps him cook dinner, and it doesn't go well but they manage to throw out the evidence and get takeaway before Chris comes home, so it's okay.

That night, explosions rock the central district. Michael goes to his window, is just in time to see the Pendulum Palace go up in flames; a minute later Chris bursts through his door, shoos him into the living room where Thomas already is.

General Kurosaki's voice, strained over the radio: Everything is fine. It looks bad, but it's an isolated incident and contained, and suspects have been apprehended and everyone should just stay home—

"I'm texting Mr Heartland to get the latest," Chris says.

"Didn't Kurosaki say everything was fine?"

"It's broadcast radio, Thomas, Kurosaki has to lie or the city would panic."

Heartland replies: Worse than Kurosaki says, but still nothing to worry about. The responsible party suffered damages recently and can't follow through. Yuuto is cleaning up as we speak, and Ruri Kurosaki is taking Yuuya to safety.

_Stay safe, Chris_

"Who was responsible?"

"Nasch."

Thomas' face twists. "Good riddance," he says. "If everything is fine, I'm going to bed."

He gets up and heads back to his room. Michael doesn't move, draws up his knees to his chest and stays there. Chris crosses the room and wraps his arms around Michael's shoulders.

"Chris-niisan—"

"It'll be okay, Michael. Mr. Heartland said it's nothing to worry about, right? Heartland City always survives."

"Yeah," Michael says, not convinced. "But what about Kaito or Mizael or Alit or—"

Chris goes quiet for half a minute, and then he bends at the waist to look Michael in the eye.

"Michael, that is— that is not our fight any more. And. It's fine to care about them and be concerned, but it can't leave this house, okay?"

Michael thinks about Tenjou Kaito, who took care of him and Thomas and cooked them meals and held their lessons when Chris had to be away. He thinks about Tsukumo Yuuma, who looked out of the lighthouse windows at somewhere just past the city's edge, who remembered his birthday and gave him trading cards and asked him, "Are you happy, Michael."

And then he thinks about Chris, his beloved elder brother who did everything to bring them to Heartland City where, instead of running from shelter to shelter, they can be safe on the inside of a house with glass windows between them and the fire. Chris worked very hard and gave up many things so that they could come here, and live this life, and it would be letting him down to throw it all away and do otherwise.

Michael nods. "You're right, niisan. It's— it's not our fight any more."

Saying the words for himself makes them real. Chris nods, and hugs him tighter.

Outside the window the sirens of the fire department are wailing, and the conflagration has dimmed to a small spire of smoke.

That night Michael doesn't sleep. He pulls his blanket over his head and texts Kotori, Tetsuo, Cathy, Takashi, Tokunosuke, asking if everyone is safe and unhurt, and as their replies arrive one by one in his inbox he feels slightly better.

The message he sent Yuuma sits in the list unanswered.

Dawn comes, and with it an uncertain return to business after Kurosaki gives the all clear at 5 a.m. All the train stations in the central district are cordoned off, so Michael takes the shuttle bus to the next station and rides from there. He's late to school, but so are five of his classmates, and none of them get told off. The atmosphere in class is quiet that day. Ukyo-sensei makes a speech in homeroom about resilience in a time of crisis.

It's scary, and uncertain, and Cathy starts to cry and it reminds Michael horribly of life before-Heartland when he never could be very sure if tomorrow would be fine. But Kotori reaches out and takes his hand and squeezes it, and forces a smile, and Michael smiles back and even though he isn't confident about it at all, it does makes him feel a bit better.

After school he goes to the Tower as usual, but Yuuma isn't there, and the observatory on the top floor is dark. "Air traffic control's being done from the palace for now," the receptionist says, when Michael asks.

Michael calls Yuuma's number, gets a recording saying 'This number is no longer in use.' He goes to Yuuma's house, but the door is locked and the interior is dark, too.

 

* * *

 

An ad for Yuuma's museum position appears in the newspaper that weekend. Michael stares at the words for a minute, then picks the paper up and heads out the door.

"Hey, Michael, where are you going?" Chris calls after him.

"To get a job," Michael yells back.

 


End file.
